Nels Cline of Wilco performs at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday. KELLY A. SWIFT, FOR THE REGISTER

Last Friday night, at a hidden gem of a venue in Palm Desert few rock fans ever have reason to visit, Wilco, arguably the mightiest American band in action today, kicked off one final weekend of proper stateside touring behind its eighth album, The Whole Love. It had been a year and a day since the release of that disc, the latest in a lengthy run of start-to-finish winners from the heralded Chicago sextet, and mixed emotions at such a happy/sad occasion were evident from the moment they took the stage at the McCallum Theatre, immediately turning atmospheric with the percolating jam “Art of Almost.”

There were smiles from the start, sure, laced with detectable wistfulness about another trek drawing to a close. Yet at any given moment during at least the first third of that performance – up until the sunshine explosion that followed another mind-boggling Nels Cline solo in “Impossible Germany,” this bunch’s “Free Bird,” by which point everyone was beaming – you could still sense looming trepidation. Not least because they were playing an unusual hall: “Doesn’t it look like The Muppet Show?” leader Jeff Tweedy asked about the structure, reiterating an observation Pat Sansone, the multi-instrumentalist to his far left, had made at sound-check.

It hardly resembles an old vaudeville house, but the tall-not-deep McCallum, with its double balcony and opera boxes ringed with lights, does give off a certain variety-show vibe. Capacity is roughly 1,100 (there were nowhere near that many people on hand Friday) and sitting/standing inside it felt like, oh, watching a full-blown Wilco show just after shooting a spot on Letterman inside the chilly Ed Sullivan Theater.

Even the back row would have been near enough to carry on a loud conversation with the group, while the front section was so close that Tweedy had to remind overzealous phone-cam filmmakers that blatantly documenting every second of the show actually isn’t cool. (“Is anybody aware that we don’t really allow taping?” he asked, telling one egregious offender “I think you’ve got enough footage now.”)

Granted, I can’t fully fault the enthusiasm of such jerks who think watching gigs through tiny video screens is preferable to living in the thick of these experiences as they happen. After all, what an ideal setting to capture a band in peak performance, and what great acoustics to boot! Rarely have I been in a room with such naturally warm ambiance – none of that reverberating Wiltern or Fonda boom here, just a crispness that cut through layers of sonic enrichment. Plus, the intimacy was palpable; you could literally hear Tweedy’s pick gliding against his guitar strings from several rows back.

All the same, it was a new place for both the artists and much of their audience, with a fine-arts stuffiness that had to be overcome, along with clumps of only mildly interested season-ticket patrons. Those older, nicely dressed attendees dotted the auditorium, tucked among younger die-hards and looking stupefied by the cyclonic assaults Wilco conjures to conclude so many songs these days, whether the piece is meant to be epic (like “Misunderstood,” treated to 28 cries of “nothing!” in the desert, four more than that two days later) or if the song simply has an expanded blueprint (like “Handshake Drugs,” routinely torrential by its end).

Perhaps the somewhat stiff setting weighed on Wilco’s collective minds. But I also wonder if they weren’t already looking ahead to Sunday’s more significant stop, mentally gearing up for a ballyhooed gig they’ve long deserved. After spoiling California fans rotten in January with a string of similarly small-scale shows in San Diego (the Balboa Theatre) and Los Angeles (the Palladium and elsewhere), the group’s return this time was designed as a ramping-up: McCallum on Friday and an afternoon in the park at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo on Saturday, leading to Wilco's first headlining appearance at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday.

They’d played that landmark once before, nine years ago, in a solid if not especially memorable set opening for R.E.M. In retrospect, it was a chance to shake off any jitters caused by an historic spotlight. There was nothing paramount riding on their overdue elevation to top-draw status – they’re now established middle-age elders of the modern era, and they drew 12,000-plus to the Bowl, enough to sell out two nights at the Greek. Yet it’s still a daunting undertaking to impress crowds and surpass hype here, no matter how seasoned a group is.

Wilco, however, made it look easy. They were completely commanding as a Bowl headliner, delivering the same level of enveloping visuals and jaw-dropping musicianship that Radiohead brings whenever those Englishemen return to this sprawling amphitheater. That might seem expected, but Wilco and the Great Outdoors haven’t always been a match made in heaven, as their less-than-impressive Coachella appearance in 2005 made clear.

Worse, there was the nagging suspicion that it wouldn't live up to Friday’s opener. I came away duly exhilarated by the Palm Desert performance, a great one capped by a lengthy, seven-song encore that built from the Woody Guthrie rewrite “California Stars” (also played at the Bowl, of course) and terrific renditions of “I Must Be High” and “The Late Greats” to a rollicking finish that barely provided a moment to breathe. That portion launched with a zippy “I’m the Man Who Loves You” and then a superb stretch all culled from Being There (1996): the pining “Red-Eyed and Blue” segueing into that album’s two gleefully stomping rockers, “I Got You (At the End of the Century)” and “Outtasite (Outta Mind).”

No way to top that, I thought. Riveting powerhouse though Wilco has become, it could just as easily get consumed by the cavernous shell and standard-issue audience apathy; happens to the best of ’em at the Bowl.

And with attention-challenging harpist/vocalist Joanna Newsom opening – an intriguing love-it-or-loathe-it choice that stood no chance of leaving the crowd roused – there was a high probability it would take a few songs just to wake people up. (I'm a fan, as is Tweedy – “that looks hard,” he admitted. Her cascading voice, reminiscent of Kate Bush’s, is as transfixing as the unerring plucking and graceful sweeps of her instrument. That said, I’ve got a line of friends all too eager to tell you just how terrible Newsom was as a warm-up act.)

Astonishingly, Sunday's show was everything it should have been and more, with Wilco playing with such poise and passion, you’d have thought they were recording their own Live at the Hollywood Bowl for future release.

The set list certainly seemed designed for that outcome. Two-thirds of it remained unchanged throughout this Cali weekend, each night offering heaping handfuls of surefire favorites: the bittersweet ebullience of “I’m Always in Love” and “Heavy Metal Drummer,” spectral versions of “Ashes of American Flags” bolstered by carefully calculated dynamic shifts, the wistful playfulness of “Hummingbird” giving way to the cries of “A Shot in the Arm” to end every main set.

There were also spots in each rundown to swap out nuggets, including at least one revived track from their 1995 debut A.M. at each date – “Shouldn’t Be Ashamed” in the desert, a Big Star-heavy handling of “Box Full of Letters” at the Bowl. Then there were surprises: At McCallum they dusted off “Laminated Cat,” a cut from Tweedy and drummer Glenn Kotche’s side project Loose Fur, but they left that out in Hollywood in favor of two Sky Blue Sky gems from five years ago, “Hate It Here” and “Walken.”

What made the crucial difference at the Bowl was Wilco’s confident control. By the second song, “War on War,” its gorgeous choruses eventually churning to a cataclysm, they had secured the crowd’s attention, and as warm gusts of wind started blowing through the pass the band only seemed to grow in forcefulness. I couldn’t help but remember how hard they battled against whipping, dusty winds at Coachella, seemingly playing into the gale at all times, fighting to be heard amid obliterating zephyrs. Here, it was as if the power of their playing harnessed the winds, pushing them back like tidal waves of heat treatment over our faces.

I kept waiting for a misstep, to feel the momentum sag, to suit my skepticism that this couldn’t possibly be the best Wilco show I’ve seen. Except I think it was. They were unfaltering, enrapturing, utterly glorious.

“Sunken Treasure,” another slice of Being There, came early, its aching refrains bathed in Pink Floyd grandeur, the Bowl’s shell becoming a series of deep blue rings that made it feel as if we were diving deeper into the song’s emotional abyss, until we reached another torrential ending. “Handshake Drugs” had more punch and swagger, and a firestorm of psychedelic swells erupting from Cline’s Fender Jazzmaster as he faced off against squalls from Tweedy’s Gibson SG. (Later, during an apparently unplanned second encore, they rocked the heebie-jeebies out of “Hoodoo Voodoo,” with Cline and Sansone trading leads like the end of Abbey Road.)

“Hate It Here” was sassier, N’awlins funkier, with Tweedy resorting to soulful falsetto on the final verse. Even “Whole Love,” perhaps the night’s lightest ditty, came across with as much heft in its bottom as Crazy Horse might provide “Cinnamon Girl” later this month at the same location. (Wilco surely got as loud.)

It was a simply tremendous performance, one of the finest I’ve seen all year. But more than anything else it was a golden moment for the masterful Nels Cline, a stoic L.A. native who nonetheless could be glimpsed basking in the joy of wailing through one soaring solo after another at this hallowed spot where Hendrix once stood.

Cline, a dozen years older than the rest of the band at 56, is a virtuoso like no other these days – experimental like Jonny Greenwood (or, more accurately, Television’s Tom Verlaine) yet equally steeped in classic rock traditions of bluesy/jazzy asides and head-spinning arpeggios, fluidly combining his strains of influence into a distinctive style that’s as magnetic to the eyes as it is thrilling to the ears.

He’s been this great since before he joined Wilco not long after their first Bowl appearance; his diversity is exemplified by both his solo work and his recordings with the much-missed Geraldine Fibbers. “He walks amongst you,” Tweedy deadpanned after an especially electrifying Cline solo on “Impossible Germany.”

It’s doubtful the guitarist ever would have had such an opportunity to wow at this landmark if he hadn’t signed up with his current mates. He owes them a debt for providing the most expansive musical format he’s ever worked within, just as they owe him heavily for raising the complexity of this music to an otherwise unreachable level. For me, his many robust highlights here were icing, the most delicious part by far of a bountiful treat. What a sight to see Wilco kill at the Bowl, but it was that much more special to see such an incredible talent get his shining hour while it was happening.

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